"hardball" and chris matthews is next. cruisen for a bruisen. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. remember what president obama said about the republicans about how their endless symbolic votes to kill obama care are now part of american law, by the way, don't constitute an economic plan? well, they didn't get the word. before the congress left for a five-week vacation today, they had one last piece of business to attend to. it wasn't creating jobs. it was another vote to kill

obama care. if you're scoring this at home, it's the 40th time the republican-led house voted to of repeal is, defund or cripple the law. it is government by tantrum meaningless. meaningless measures, meaningless roll calls, meaningless speeches as they say down in texas, it's all hat and no cattle. republicans are united against obama care when it comes to votes like this one, but a warring faction of tea party republicans led by ted cruz of texas are making it very real threat to shut down the u.s. government if the law is not killed. apparently the strategy is being lambasted as silly, dumb, unachievable and political suicide. and the people saying those words are not democrats, it's the republicans in congress who are saying those things. and those criticisms are delicate compared to what's in today's "washington post." charles krauthammer, a pulitzerer price winning conservative columnist says cruz belongs to the loony bin.

"and this is krauthammer, this is nuts. every physical showdown has rebounded against the republicans. those who fancy themselves tea party patriots fighting a sold out cocktail swilling establishment are demanding yet another cliff dive as a show of principle. and manliness. but there's no principle at stake here. this is about tactics. if i thought this would work, i would support it, but i don't fancy suicide. it has a tendency to be fatal." as for manliness, the real question here is sanity, nothing could better revibe the fortunes of a failing, flailing fading democratic administration than a government shutdown where the president is portrayed as standing up to the gop on honoring our debts and paying our soldiers in the field. wow. also in the "washington post" today, michael gershon, a former george w. bush speech write are says cruz views this as the last stand against obama care, a conservative alamo instead, it would be a little bighorn. cruz bids to become a custer for

our time, an actual shutdown of the government the only realistic outcome of his strategy would work for conservatives only if voters blamed it on obama's intransigence. so americans would need to side with the faction of a disdained institution pursuing a budgettarily maneuver that will many republican maneuvers regard as desperate and doomed. joining us now are two political analysts, david corn of mother jones and sam stein with the "huffington post." sam, what probably brought this to a head? what finally got people like gershon and krauthammer and others i sim out there over the prairie to say we'd better be careful. if cruz gets control of the opposition here of the republican party, we may be in trouble. >> i think it was the sheer overtness of it. it wasn't as if he was trying to set the stage for a government shutdown. he was sort of actively courting it. and when you're trying to shut

down the government, you shouldn't be the one who says let's do it. that's what has convinced republicans this is a stupid strategy. you also have to look at the actual implications and how this thing would work. and the congressional research service did that and concluded if you wanted to defund obama care, shutting down the government wouldn't do it. a lot of this is mandatory spending that would continue going on as if nothing happened. so in terms of substance and strategy, a lot of people woke up and said, why exactly are we doing this? >> let's go into the why. most times when you have a mission and cruz has got a brain, where is he headed? he up to the rock 'n' roll opposition politics of newt gingrich which is insurgent politics? it he trying to scare us with this? what's the plan? >> i think this is a fight between the oppositional insurrectionist wing of the republican party and basically everybody else, whether it's john mccain in the senate or charles krauthammer in the

thought leaders on the right. there are all kind of bounded against this. this is about setting up 2016. we kind of thought after 2012 and the election results that this wing, the tea party radicalized wing of the republican party was certainly not in an sense dense. but ted cruz and mike lee and others are saying hey, this fight's not over yet. what is politics abwho are? a vacuum with nothing else happening in congress these days, mike -- ted cruz mike lee and the others can get a lot of attention by making these threats. the republicans had any real strategy, any real legislative program going on, they wouldn't get any traction for this. >> go back to the numbers here, sam. it looks like obama floats around 50% now, a little less. generally in that area. maybe it's 45 now. congress is down around 8 in terms of public support. now, you don't battle four against 45. it's a killer mission, 9-1. it's overwhelming. why would you do it if it's

going to come down to that day when all of a sudden the average person out there can't go to the national monuments, they can't go to the national parks, they can't get their checks on time or threatened with not getting them and say we only have one president. we may not agree with him on many things but there's only one of them. as for congress, we don't want those guys running the they. >> twofold. one is that the 8% popularity rating applies to an institution at large, not to the member itself. for rand paul -- >> you think he's higher than average? >> protected in in the state of texas, sure. a lot of house members, of course, gerrymandered congress feel protected to do things like this and don't need to take into consideration the long-term national ramifications of what this means to the party. i think also there's a bigger issue here which is that the longer that the health care law is in is existence, the harder to real e repeal. 2014 is a big year. a lot of benefits come into

effect. it's a lot easier to repeal a law in abstract than take away the coverage you've gotten through obama care. i think a lot of people doll recognize this and making that type of calculation, as well. >> let's look at how extreme the opposition is to obama. you think cruz is far out there, at a town hall meeting in alabama the other day, martha roby was confronted by an angry tea party constituent who spouted accusations about the president. her lack of response is notable here. here's the back and forth. >> what i need from you is to know what you can do, you and your fellow con communist colleagues in the lower house, what you can do to stop these communist tyrannical executive orders laid down by this foreign-born american-hating communist despot. what can you you do for me. >> we need to know.

>> so thank you for your question. he said it loud enough that you all heard it. look, i can't emphasize the oversight part of my job enough. and i think that that gets lost in what we do every day because that's exactly what we're doing. we're chasing down these executive orders. we're chasing down these rules that are promulgated that are backdoor legislation by agencies whether it's the epa, the irs, go down the list. >> you know, sam, and david, i've been saying for weeks if not months the real leader of the republican party today is no way is it john boehner. the real leader of the republican party is the loudest crazy person at the next town meeting you've got to go to if you're a republican member in congress. that guy with the blonde case, the nut case that calls the president foreign born despot was more powerful in that room

than the member of congress who kowtowed to him. john boehner had said let's be reasonable, she would have shouted her down. this guy shouted her down. >> props to tim murphy for reporting this first actually. that was very great to jump on that. it gets to the question we've been talking about. ted cruz is not playing for people who are worried about shutting down the government. he's playing towards the republican base and. >> the birthers. he was out with gohmert the other day, one of the wildest of the birthers. >> the pew study foundation came out with a study the other day asking republicans, do you think your party is going in the right direction or not. most said no. but 54% said they wanted it to be more conservative. so that's what he's doing. this is all setting up 2016 and becoming the nominee or the champion of the guy who asked that question. >> well, that's the great question, sam. is more conservative meaning buying into people who say the president's foreign born, seize an american-hating communist

despot? the irony and i'm not knocking him, but ted cruz is foreign born. i mean, i know they take it as a derissive comment. it happens to be an accident. his mother was up in canada when he she delivered him. this right wing crazy crowd thinks foreign borne is like evil and referee to the president being foreign born sympathying that would somehow disqualify him but when you have an american mother, you are american. your thoughts? >> yes, is he foreign born and yes the comment was reprehensible to the member of congress. there are concerns with what the president did the employer mandate. it has been done before. i understand the substantive concerns of that. but taking the argument to that extreme is a distraction. it is upsetting and i don't think it does the party any good. >> let's get back to where we starred tonight. is this extremism what will charles krauthammer calls looniness on the part of people like cruz going all the way out there saying we're going to shut down the government. we haven't gotten to november

yet. this is just september. we're going to default and the chinese will go crazy and ask for their money back. >> yep. >> could be zmirngs, of course. >> is there a tipping point where obama become serenaded by the middle of the country as our only hope. >> the last showdown, republicans and public opinion polls lost more ground than obama. the guys trying to force this on the republican side don't care. as i said before, they're in favor of chaos, destruction. they want to be an oppositional force, not a governing force. that's where the civil war is in the republican party. >> i love you getting that tape. it shows a lot. that's who they're allied with, the earbirthers and thes. if that guy wants to come on the show, come on. we'll talk to you. >> a lot of people were asking

why was a man who has admitted his monstrous guilt allowed this big moment in the spotlight and the racial divide we saw in the zimmerman trial is reflected in how people think about the stand your ground law. whites support it by the same measure african-americans oppose it. it's obviously it's tied in to the trial. and you've seen the most interesting man in the world. now the man behind the most interesting man ads is out there doing something, well, interesting. he looks interesting. and let me finish tonight with a jobless rate that's down but not enough. this is "hardball," the place for politics. peoi go to angie's listt for all kinds of reasons. to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget.

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we're back. yesterday in a courtroom in cleveland, ohio, we saw two extremes. on the one hand, a composed and brave young woman, michelle knight facing the monster who enslaved her for over a decade. on the other hand, we saw ariel castro ramble on for 16 minutes with excuses and half hearted apologize. even as he apologized he insisted what went on in his house of horrors was normal. >> i would come home and just be normal like a normal family. these accusations that i would come home and beat her and beat them, those are totally wrong, your honor because like i said before, i am not a violent person. i know what i did is wrong but

i'm not a violent person. i simply kept them there without them being able to leave. i am truly i sorry to the dejesus family, michelle. and you guys know a lot of harmony went on in that home. >> i don't think those lawyers like him either. as the judge later told him, the prisoner there, there isn't another person in the entire country who would agree with his description of being nonviolent. but what was it like for michelle knight, the victim? and the families of the other victims to sit in that courtroom and listen to their torturer speak like that? someone who knows that kind of pain too well is marc klaas, a good buy. in '96 he was in the court for the sentencing of his 12-year-old daughter's convicted murderer as he addressed the court, he used part of the time to taunt klaas with a vial accusation. here we see how klaas reacted. let's watch. >> burn in hell, davis.

>> well, why do monsters and davis cas and ariel castro get to taunt victims and family ofs? why do lawyers not object to his self-important screed? marc klaas is the founder of the klaas kids foundation along with former prosecutor and defense attorney see ma ire. thank you both. what did you think watching, i guess you watched on television yesterday, as castro the kidnapper, rapist, whatever, killer, murderer, he is all of them, walked in there and spoke like he was jeremiah? he had some big message for everybody? >> it was absolutely and completely offensive. i really, chris, physically started shaking because it took me right back to that time 17 years ago when i sat in a courtroom and had to listen to another extreme pervert excuse and justify his vial crimes. it was an affront to humanity, i

thought. >> let me bring in seema, an attorney. i this is t i noticed that the victim was very careful, she addressed the court, spoke to the judge in reading that statement but did the defendant here, he's already convicted now, was able to turn around and basically enjoy the confrontation with his victim. >> chris, a psychopath and a sociopath and someone narcissistic of course, he wants this attention. and unfortunately, our law recognizes that. there are certain critical stages in the process. and this is what case law and statute tells us. so this sentencing is one of those critical stages. he las the right to speak and he has the right to speak as long or as little as he wants. the difference between mr. castro and ms. knight is that ms. knight was well prepared by the prosecutors and probably her lawyer. plaintiff castro, as you could

see from those defense attorneys and, chris, you know, for the audience, this was kind of an aberration, not instinct they're used to seeing >> let's watch him now in action, mr. castro, ariel castro. ariel castro winking sort of at the judge after enjoying eye contact with everybody in the room, he talks about to the court about the sex with the three victims was consensual he said, that they asked for it. it's that gross. let's watch him. >> most of the sex that went on in the house practically all of it was consensual. there's allegations about being forceful on them, that is totally wrong. because there was times that they would even can ask me for sex. many times. and i learn add that these girls were not virgins from their testimony to me. they are multiple participants before me. >> marc klaas, i guess that

resounded to you, they asked for it. as if tied up or chained in a basement for a decade, getting only your food from this guy, the only food you got, scared to death he's going to beat you or rape you or kill your kid or whatever or drive you to a miscarriage or whatever, that's called nonviolent by his terms and that's called asking for it? >> you know, i mean the only good result of his being allowed to give this testimony is that it gave us a window noon exactly what his soul is like. he talked about a harmonious relationship within that house. well, for him, a harmonious situation is one where he gets to imprison, gets to rape, gets to beat, and gets to the torture multiple victims. that shows you exactly how evil and horrible this creature really is. >> i agree. >> go ahead. >> i agree completely with mr. klaas. because of his own tragedy,

mr. klaas understands that this person, chris, you're trying to talk about him like you can connect with him. you cannot connect with him. he is a sociopath. that is not my opinion. that is a clinical fact from almost 20 years of dealing with people like mr. castro. so you cannot try to explain why he did what he did. in his mind, that was harmonious. in his mind, that was a home. for us, it is evil. we had the opportunity and the unfortunate predicament to look at evil in the eye. and hopefully, we will never see this man again. >> tell me about court procedure. maybe mark knows this, too. you first, seema. is it within the bounds of an attorney for the victims there to call to order that moment and say you cannot talk about. >> no. >> you can't shut the guy up? >> no, and okay, so just to be clear. the attorneys for the victims, they are civil attorneys that were doing some just kind of i think damage control.

okay? but the prosecution represents the state who represents the victim in that will proceeding that we saw yesterday in sentencing. you absolutely cannot cut him off because again, going back under the constitution, this is a critical stage of the process. but chris, it's very important that most people did not pick up on that when he starred saying things about consent, that he wasn't torturing them, that he wasn't a sexual predator, he was bordering on violating the terms of the plea agreement and if it wasn't such a highly publicized case, i'm telling you most judges in this land may not have taken that plea. this may have all been for naught. >> back to the real world in which the woman herself was captured. here's michelle knight talking about what it was really like in the captivity of this guy. >> ariel castro, i remember all the times that you came home talking about what everybody

else did wrong. and act like you weren't doing the same thing. you said at least i didn't kill you. for you took 11 years of my life away. and i have got it back. i was in 11 years in hell. now your hell is just beginning >> mark, you've been helping michelle knight. tell me about that relationship that you helped with her. >> about six months ago, the foundation start the a new fund called the klaas family housing fund, the brainchild of a local real estate lady who wanted to do something in her field to help the families of missing persons. so we came up with this idea of funding this new fund to be able to pay to the families of missing persons so that they wouldn't slip into financial ruin as they were looking for their children, but then all of this business happened in cleveland and it turned out that michelle was one of the three

young women who didn't really have a family to go back to. so we made the decision to take the money that was in the fund which was about $6,000 and donate it directly to michelle for the express purpose of allowing her to pay for her living exexpenses. >> marc klaas, i hope you can proceed with your effort to get justice and not just in your case but as much as you can get in your lifetime. thank you, sir, for coming on. seema iyer, great to have you on the show. [ male announcer ] it's a golden opportunity to discover a hybrid from the luxury car company that understands that one type of hybrid isn't right for everyone. come to the lexus golden opportunity sales event and choose from one of five lexus hybrids that's right for you, including the lexus es and ct hybrids. ♪ this is the pursuit of perfection.

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once mixed up the word insects with the word incest. >> i said you know we have a real problem with incest in south alabama. i said, in fact, i would venture a guess that we have more problems with incest in my district in alabama and in any other congressional district in america. >> so i got back to my office thinking i had delivered up with of the best speeches on insects ever made. and my staff said jo, in about two minutes you just reinforced in the minds of all americans what we have a problem with in south alabama. >> well, the next time, that's an honest guy. he's the most interesting man in the world at heat of on tv that is. since his first appearance on american television back in 2006, the doe sec kiss man has become an advertising icon. most are familiar are the

bearded jaemt's feats of strength, daring adventures and debonair charm. but the actor who plays this hemingway kesk chirac jonathan goldsmith has taken on another real life after you world joining clear path international that aids survivors of landmine and bomb accidents. here he is in vietnam talking about the group. >> these are live bombs in a moment or two, we're going to blow them up. >> i'm here in vietnam to meet with bomb accident survivors being helped by a very special group. clear path international. sadly, millions of bombs left over from that conflict continue to maim and kill men women and children. the advisory group was kind enough to let me detonate two large piles of bombs. it felt good to hit that switch and remove these threats forever. >> so wouldn't you like to have dinner tonight with the world's most interesting man? anyway, up next, interesting in

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of i'm jane wells with your cnbc mark wrap. the dow up 30, the s&p added 2, and the nasdaq gained 13. july's jobs report came in weaker than expected with only 162,000 jobs added but it was enough for the unemployment rate to drop to 7.4% consumer spending ended up about a half a point in june boosted by car sales and higher gas pries. shares of linked in up nearly 11% after posting better quarrel little results and increased membership. and in a spat between time

warner cable and cbs, time warner cable has pulled down cbs programming in major markets like new york and los angeles. that is the monitor you're seeing behind me. no cbs here in l.a. that's it from cnbc first in business worldwide. now back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." the weiner mobile rolls on the twice disgraced new york mayoral candidate has endured a political beating from all sides. his campaign manager quit this week. he went from top dog to fourth in the polls. his campaign manager lambasted for her rant and the clintons are wisely keeping their distance. if you think he'll shrink from the new york spotlight, forget about it. after a campaign event this morning, he engage inside a round robin series of interviews with local media including wnbc's andrew siff.

is he struck a defiant tone when asked about his issues. >> you can if you want use this is entire interview to talk about the scandal, trying to come up with some new form of the question. you can try a new formulation, did you see this, did you see that. look, i know it's out there. i did these things. i'm embarrassed by them. i'm trying to put them behind me. i want going forward to have a conversation with citizens about what they care about. i mean, if you really think that this is what people get up in the morning and lincoln house is concerned about, if you think a middle class person trying to figure out why the public school they went to is not as good as it used to be, and someone that has a restaurant wage job, cares about the cover of "the new yorker," i think you might be wrong. >> the campaign rolls on. you can see new york loves an underdog. can he make it in the debates later this month? could he pull a comeback? every dog has his day. and drew sef is the reporter who

interviewed weiner today and michael greenbaum from the "new york times." gentlemen, let me pose something for the prosecution. if you go into an interview with wnbc today, they'll talk about a scandal which rocked you from first place down to fourth place. if you don't want to talk about, you don't go into the interview. you don't try to write the questions as well as the answers. that's my thought. we write the questions, they write the answers. if you think the question's coming, don't go into the situation. your thoughts? >> he knew the question was coming. it was their campaign that reached out to us and to the other affiliates offering up the one-on-one interview. so i think he wanted to accepted a message today that he was going to at least try and declare the scandal over and move on. he knows that that won't happen but he wanted to take a more combative tone today to accepted a message that's the fiery persona that anthony weiner that people remember from congress and that he the message he wanted to send out today.

>> how successful will he be? can you measure this? he's tried to personify himself as the people of new york. it's not that he's embarrassed them which he has and embarrassed the city's name. more coming from the republicans the next couple of years on this, especially if he does well in the primary. he said no, i'm not the guy that's embarrassed new york. i'm new york. i'm the guy watching this thing. it's one of these old political transformations where you reposition yourself not as the guy causing the trouble but somehow the media is the trouble and he's a new yorker trying to get his apartment fixed. >> he's walking an fine line. he campaigned on staten island last week and a retired school teach said if she it done what he had done, she would have been fired. he's been getting a warm reception in his old congressional district in queens and campaigning in much safer ground this week. he has been getting applause. he has been finding that crowds will listen do his message, but it's been a little bit of a delicate balance. he knows there are some new

yorkers who are truly disgusted by his behavior and haven't moved beyond it. he says that's okay. i think there are enough other new yorkers who know my record who will vote for me. >> doesn't make sense, michael, a wide primary. what's he need to get into the runoff, 35, 40? >> he could score somewhere in the low 20s even and make it into the second part because it's such a splintered field this year. >> really? >> you'd have to beat out thompson who nervous seems to get above 20, squeak above thompson, go in against quinn and he wouldn't be able to beat her, would he? >> i don't think so. you got to the think about his priorities going into the race. everything breaks his way, becomes mayor of new york city. he has a respectable showing in the polls. he brings back credibility as a politics who can go on tv, have a job in and out of government. right now he's back to square one. >> he's using the public at subway stops and on media interviews to bathe himself of his troubles. in other words, the more

exposure which has always been his game anyway, the more he gets with us, it sort of cleans him. this air bath he's taking right now. at the end he comes out second or third or even a strong fourth and he can claim he's back in business, michael. i'm a politician. >> i think that's the goal. he's back to square one after this second round of revelations surfaced last week. he's going to have a lot of trouble. this is apology tour part three. >> there's no reason to believe it's cleaned up either, is there? the only thing we know about him is what will he's told us. he's never come clean. >> i asked him when was the last time i sent an explicit message of anytime. he said it was a year ago. it was not past september of last year and the first time he put a time stamp on things. >> oh, it's creeping. it was august two days ago. now it's september. >> he said august, maybe early september, definitely not november, definitely 100% not 2013. and he also said 100% not, he is

100% not sexting or messaging with anyone right now. so he was more declarative about that than he has been in the past. >> you realize andrew at your young age how absurd this conversation is? >> not as young as i look, covering anthony weiner for 1 years. >> you're talking about the guy that wants not to be forgiven or left alone on the corner without people spitting on him but to be be made the mayor of the greatest city in the world. that's what he wants as his acceptance, not to be forgiven, but to be crowned. >> he tried a new argument this week at some of the mayoral forums which is you see the pounding i've been taking in the media, and i'm still standing up here and taking it. that is a quality you want in your mayor. that's a new argument that he has tried out this week on the crowds. it's an aapplause line. >> talk about associations. i've always said i love the city, i love going up there, but does new york want their name associated with this guy if he

wins? weiner was asked, here's something i don't think he wants to be associated with him, hillary clinton. he was asked and here's what he said. >> i have no reason to believe she's annoyed. i've got pundits saying it means this or that. they don't know what they're talking about. >> do you think a man politically smart enough to get elected to congress doesn't know that hillary is, the relationship is being abused by this? michael? >> i think the clinton world right now is protect the brand. philippe rooins has started playing a role in the weiner campaign advising his wife whether to appear in a commercial. there's tea leaves suggesting there's concern in the clinton camp. >> what can they do? >> they're accepteding in representatives. it's unclear who's interests are being expressed here. mr. ryans is a very good of

friend of miss abedin's. he says he's trying to mitigate the fallout for her and help a friend through a difficult time. right after he -- right around the time he talked to her last week, he called mrs. clinton to let her know what was about to happen. >> 15 years the clintons have had a clear record without embarrassments like this. they've cleaned up their act. they get all the credit for that and this comes along and reminds everybody of the whole problem. i don't think it's going to hurt in the end but i can't believe they're not going to think it does, andrew siff and michael grynbaum for joining us. up next, blacks and whites in complete disagreement over stand your ground laws. why would two groups in america disagree so much about a point of law? this is supposed to be just to all. this is "hardball," the place for politics. r million tweeters are tweeting. and 900 million dollars are changing hands online. that's why the internet needs a new kind of server.

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>> the well, the united states of america may not be loved everywhere on the planet but still loved a lot of places very much so. here are the top five countries that view america most favorably. kenya, number four, senegal in west africa, number three, ghana in west africa, three african countries in the row in the top five. israel, and of course, the country with the highest percentage of people who view us favorably, the philly where 85% have a favorable view of our country. the corrupts who don't like us, all in the middle east.

number five, turkey only one in five views america favorably over there. number four, egypt. number three, the palestine territories, number two is jordan, number one pacific where 11% view us favorably. we'll be right back. the last four hours... have seen one child fail... to get to the air sickness bag in time. another left his shoes on the plane. his shoes. and a third just simply doesn't want to be here. until now. until right... booking now. planet earth's #1 accommodation site. booking.com booking.yeah

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and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting mr. zimmerman who had followed had imin a car because he felt threatened? and if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws. >> well, there's a law professor and a good one. that was president obama responding to the george zimmerman verdict. that was the day on the day he did that and there he was proposing the changes in your stand your ground law. the president's proposing it especially in florida. he must be talking about that one. the racial divide we saw during the zimmerman trial is reflected in how african-americans and white people view the laws today. the quinnipiac poll just released a new poll that showed that 57%, three out of five african-americans oppose such laws while only 37% support them. the numbers are reversed when you look at the white people. joining us is the executive

director of mayors against illegal guns and jonathan capehart. jonathan, i think you and i agree on a lot of this. we don't like guns generally and the hands of people walking up and down the street. without invading anyone's civil liberties, some way you could tell if they had a gun. i don't want any guns on the street. i don't want guns in the movie theaters. i don't want guns in the restaurants. i don't want them near me. ideally, like in the old west where you leave your guns at the city limits. we live in a world where the people might mug you, someone might have a gun in their car. let's start with the racial piece of this. is this going to be an historic divide? because there is already a polarized view about guns generally, as you and i know. >> right. >> african-americans, they live in cities a lot of them. they look upon guns as a problem. >> i'm not surprised by the quinnipiac poll and the racial divide and even the political divide that it shows. this corp., remember, three weeks almost to the day after george zimmerman was acquitted.

and was acquitted -- >> the only time you heard that phrase used. >> right, right. and even george zimmerman in his defense didn't use a stand your ground defense. what people have to remember is the language of the self-defense law in florida is the stand your ground law. when you look at the jury instructions, it is identical to the florida law. so, of course, african-americans who are very upset by the zimmerman acquittal of course are going to look at stand your ground as a law that they just can't possibly support. >> let's just do it for people that are trying to figure this out like me. i'm not a law. what is the difference between standard ideas of self-defense like we learned in old cowboys movies or your life, you're allowed to defend your life against serious bodily ground. how is that different from stand your ground? >> they're pretty much redundant in what you can already do under common law for 400 years. right now if i go out in the parking lot and i'm leaving and i'm attacked i'm allowed to use commensurate force.

if i can deescalate the situation, i'm required to do that. if i can talk them down, if i can walk back into the building, i can do that. and you want that in a society. >> in a schoolyard fight, we i was in them, a guy wants to punch you a couple times to get you to say uncle. he is not trying to kill you. he just wants to win the fight. how do you know when wanting to win the fight, the matter of manhood guys grew up with becomes i want to kill you? >> one way is to look at studies they've done in florida is how this actually impacts real cases. in more than 30% of the cases where stand your ground law was asserted and somebody ended up dying, they didn't even have a gun. >> what was the circumstance generally? >> very often somebody will come at you. they might want to have a fistfight. they might come at you with an ax handle. >> would you consider the guy with the ax handle armed or not? >> not with a gun. >> identical him armed. >> i have a word for him. i grew up in colorado where my dad was a gun dealer, and a guy who shoots somebody who has anything other than a gun when

they could have done something else like talk or fight with their fists -- >> how do you talk to a guy with an ax handle? >> well, you fight him. you runaway. you deescalate the situation. >> but here is where the scales are tipped in favor of the person with the gun who decides he or she wants to stand his ground. and that is the way the law is written, it says if the person who uses the deadly force reasonably believes that they are in danger of bodily harm or death, that's where stand your ground becomes to my mind insane. how do you determine that? how do you define? >> skip the zimmerman case. it's too hot. give me a case where you think somebody unreasonably claimed fear of death or bodily harm when they shouldn't be able to do that. >> i would say the zimmerman case. >> then that gets to the question do you believe his testimony or not. >> i don't want to give you a specific case. >> issues of fact. >> but if you look at the same study of the stand your ground law in florida, in more than 60%

of the cases the person who shot and asserted that defense could have clearly walked away or otherwise deescalated the situation, and they chose not to. >> and, chris, in the zimmerman case, there were many opportunities for george zimmerman to deescalate. he could have identified himself as a neighborhood watch person. he could have asked trayvon martin who are you? are you lost? are you staying here? there are a number of opportunities where george zimmerman could have deescalated. >> that's problem i had with it. not that everybody has been right. i believe with everybody about the way he behaved, shouldn't have gotten out of the car, shouldn't have had a gun. but what we don't know is the critical aspect of what happened in the minutes before he was shot. was his head smashed in? how many times. how close was he to serious being knocked out? we don't know. it's all in that area of reasonable doubt. and i think that's why they acquitted. >> that's the problem withstand your ground. because rather than an investigation that the police conduct and a prosecution based on the facts, you get this presumption in the favor of

people who -- >> what would be the premium if you just had standard self-defense? >> you would -- they would have to prove that within a reasonable doubt, they had reason to act in the way that they did. and this tips the scales on behalf of people who shoot. >> thank you for coming on. >> thank you. >> have a nice weekend. >> thanks, chris. you too. >> thank you for coming on. you'll all be back again. this issue is not going away. let me start the finish tonight with the jobless rate coming down. pretty good news for obama today. dropped a lot, almost three or four points since he came into office. we'll be right back after this. did you know, your eyes can lose vital nutrients as you age?

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let me finish tonight with this. we got word today that the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.4%. this marks close to a full three-point drop since the joblessness of this president's inaugural year in office. in other words, the situation he inherited. with the risk of ranting, i still think this president being a democrat needs to focus on jobs right there, on employment, putting people to work. he began to do that this week offering the republicans a good deal, a good one-on-one deal. he would cut the corporate tax rate dramatically for manufacturing if the republicans would back his proposal to get busy on this country's roads and bridges, matching growth in private sector jobs with those in the public sector. this is where we have to go as a country, rebuilding for the 21st century, getting back in the competition with europe and asia for a modern economic society. the job now to stick to this proposal, mr. president, keep the pressure on the other side,

show the republicans are the roadblock to greater job creation. they're the ones holding up full-blown recovery. that's what i think. that's that what i'm going to keep on saying. the jobless rate is down, but not enough. we need to go at this with both fists, private and public, and do it soon. soon enough to get this recovery zooming. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "politicsnation" with al sharpton starts right now. thanks, chris, and thanks to you for tuning in. tonight's lead, the national disgrace that is today's gop. a party with an agenda that is immoral, unjust, and unamerican. today house republicans held their 40th vote to roll back president obama's health care law. every single gop lawmaker voted for it. voting to hurt health care and to take it away from millions of americans. >> this was a do nothing congress, and now